PLEASURES OF A GARDEN. 103 



I must bring these Notes, such as they are, to 

 a close, and yet I feel I have scarcely even yet 

 described the pleasures of a garden. But my 

 memory at least can do it justice. It recalls 

 summer afternoons, when the lawn tennis went 

 merrily on on the lawn, by the weeping ash-tree, 

 and summer evenings, when the house was too 

 hot, and we sat out after dinner upon the terrace 

 with the claret and the fruit. The air was all 

 perfume, and the light lingered long in the east 

 over the church steeple three miles away, and no 

 sound but of our own voices broke the silence 

 and the peace. 



Again, there were fine bright autumn days 

 days when the garden was full of warm scent and 

 warmer colour days when the children could 

 swing for hours in the hammock, which hangs 

 between two large Sycamores, and have their tea- 

 table beneath the trees, days when the still air 

 was only stirred by the patter of a falling chest- 

 nut, or the note of some solitary bird, or the 

 sound of church bells far away. Beyond the 

 grass-field, which comes nearly up to the house, was 

 a field of wheat, and we could watch the harvesting, 

 and follow with our eyes the loaded waggons as 

 they passed along by the hedge-row trees, 



